Chapter 4
The hallway didn't empty after I took the glass away. I set it on the small side table by the paneled wall, just out of reach, and stepped back to where he'd told me to stand. The warm light from the sconces made the cream walls look softer than they felt. I could hear the faint tick of the clock down the corridor and the low hum of the air running through the house.
He hadn't moved. The man in the suit kept his position close beside me, not touching, but close enough that his shoulder blocked the blonde woman's direct line to me. She was still holding her hand near her waist, fingers tight around nothing now that the glass was gone. Her earrings caught the light when she shifted her weight.
"Who saw how this started?" he'd asked. The question had landed minutes earlier and it still hadn't been answered. No one had walked through. No one had come down the staircase. The scrollwork of the iron railing threw a shadow across the carpet and there was no one else in it.
He asked it again, quieter this time, looking at her first and then at me. "Was anyone else in the hall when it happened?"
That was what he'd meant the first time and what he meant now. He wasn't asking us to repeat ourselves. He was asking if there was a third person who could say what they'd seen.
The blonde woman answered before I could breathe. "She grabbed your mother's wine out of my hand," she said. Her voice was higher than his, and it carried. "I was bringing it to the table and she just took it. Like I don't know how to carry a glass."
I kept my hands clasped. My forearm ached where the marks were and I tucked it a little behind my other wrist without thinking.
He turned his head just enough to include me. "Is that what happened?"
I shook my head once. "No, sir."
The pause before I spoke felt longer than it was. I could hear my own breathing.
"She was coming through with the glass," I said. "The rim was dirty. I could see the smudge under the light. I took it so I could wipe it or pour a clean one before your mother saw it."
"Did you take the glass?" he'd asked earlier. "Yes, sir." That part wasn't in question. Neither was why. "The rim was dirty." I hadn't changed any of it. I didn't change it now.
She let out a short laugh that didn't sound amused. "Dirty? It was fine. You didn't even ask. You just grabbed it."
"I asked you to wait," I said, and my voice was lower than hers. "You kept walking."
His eyes stayed on her. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The hallway made every small sound too clear.
"So we have two versions," he said. "And no witness."
The blonde woman crossed her arms, the satin of her dress shifting over her shoulders. "You saw her take it. That's the witness. What else do you need?"
"I saw the end of it," he said. "Not the start."
I felt my shoulders tighten. I hadn't realized I'd been waiting for someone to come around the corner — one of the other staff, the caterer, anyone — but the hall stayed empty. The painting on the wall behind her didn't move. The house was quiet in that held-breath way it got before guests arrived.
He checked his watch, a quick glance at the face on his left wrist, then looked back toward the far end of the foyer where the front doors were.
"That bottle wasn't open for service," he said. He was speaking to her now, and his tone had changed. Less mediation, more information. "My mother had it sent over this afternoon. It was for her private tasting before dinner. She requested that no one pour it until she got here."
The words landed heavier than the argument about the rim. I swallowed.
The blonde woman's composure slipped for half a second. "I didn't know it was — she left it on the counter. I thought it was for everyone."
"It was on the tray in the pantry with her note on it," he said. "It was not for everyone."
I remembered the bottle. Dark glass, the paper tag tied around the neck with twine in her handwriting. I'd seen it when I wiped the counter. I hadn't touched it because the note said not to. I hadn't realized she had taken that one.
"She'll be here in twenty minutes," he added. He didn't look at me when he said it. He was looking at the blonde woman, letting that number sit in the air between us. "She'll ask where her wine is. She'll ask why the glass she was supposed to use has a lipstick mark on the rim."
Her hand went to her mouth, then dropped. She glanced at the glass on the side table as if seeing the smudge for the first time.
May you like
I stood still. The glass was there, evidence both ways depending on who looked. The rim still held the faint print. The bottle was still in the pantry. And the hallway still had only the three of us in it, with the iron railing curving behind us and no neutral witness to say who had reached for what first.
He didn't ask again who had seen it. There was no one to ask. The quiet after his last sentence made that clear, and the sound of a car turning into the long driveway outside, faint through the thick front doors, made the other part clear too. Her mother was coming, and whatever we called what had happened in the hall, we would have to say it again in front of her.
